Designing a Multi-disciplinary Group Project for Computer Science and Engineering Students

This paper describes the design of a group-based project that combines both the hardware and software disciplines of our Computer Science (CS) and Computer Engineering (CE) undergraduates. The goals for the multi-disciplinary design project (MDP) are to provide our 3rd year undergraduates with the opportunities to apply the theoretical knowledge acquired from their early years to solving a practical problem, foster a continuous improvement mindset, and experience the benefits and challenges of working collaboratively in a large team. This requires the formulation of a suitably complex problem that can integrate the skill sets from both the CE and CS programmes. It also requires suitable assessment strategies that can evaluate the students at the individual level, at the group level and at the inter-group level. This paper shares our pedagogical considerations in designing the project module, our experience gleaned from conducting the module over the last five years and some results of a recent online survey conducted to gather students’ feedback on their experience of MDP.